“The Family Feast”, literally means a meal prepared at home for guests. It leads to this exhibition because the works shown are small paintings made in my own home.

It started like this: each weekend when my elder son doesn’t go to school, I have to take him out for fun so that his mom can bring our younger son into sleep. We have been to art museums and art galleries but have never set foot to an art supply store, a key link in the chain of art, so we drove to one of those shops.

I tend to be intrigued by my own kid’s curiosity, so I did want to see what he would pick up among all the goods in the shop. After shuttling repeatedly between shelves, he finally settled for two green-shelled duck eggs made of foam, durable and economical. “This boy does know the value of frugality,” I could not help giving him a thumb up in my mind.

For someone like me who tend to spend generously, such small purchase could hardly qualify as our minimum spending. So out of shame and indignation, I selected several stacks from a pile of paper in an attempt to appease the shop assistant who in his mind could be lashing out at me, “the annoying shopper who spent a whole day with his kid in the shop without buying anything as if they were in a museum”. In fact, the paper would definitely be used for painting as the pastime at night after the kids fell asleep. It would be a shame not to paint something with a big stack of paper bought and placed at my fingertips, as such paintings would be made, casually accompanied by instant noodle and soap opera. Right then my passions to become a role model as a diligent painter were arising. So on our way home I lovingly wrapped one arm around my elder son’s neck and carried the bag in the other hand, while my son carried a fake duck egg in each of his hand. What a charming scene when both of us, me and my son, were immersed joyously in the beautiful sunset glow in Guangzhou City.

Seriously, Chinese ink painting, regardless of genres or subject matters, emphasizes two governing principles, namely, an interesting soul and muscle memory(techniques). While some artists may be endowed with an interesting soul, rarely given by destiny but louder enough to dwarf other qualities, every artist can acquire some techniques through continuous practices. With good techniques, an artist could produce something admirable but not necessarily something adorable. In other words, there would be no better integration than one between great techniques and an interesting soul.

This exhibition features a collection of my new ink works of traditional link drawings to convey the relaxation, intimacy and delights characteristics of family feasts, which may be short of extravagantly served rare delicacies but is nevertheless plainly sumptuous and excellent in color, aroma and tastes, capable of captivating the sensual faculties and the heart while generating extraordinary aftertastes.

Given the glory of the very word “art” today, an artist who still paints at home like me could seem a bit “low-browed” although my sincerity is beyond doubt. As for other things I have in mind, I would like to insert a piece of advertising about my two other solo exhibitions to be held respectively in Beijing and Paris and I do hope they will come to your attention.

To conclude, I hope my heart will stay with my home and our motherland as my works go global.